A Clean Slate

January 1 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Just as Jesus gives each of us a clean slate when we let Him wash us clean of sin by His shed blood, so everyone has a fresh new calendar page with nothing written upon it as we begin the New Year. No doctor appointments. No reminders of meetings to attend. No social engagements jotted down. Everyone has a completely clean slate to begin a brand new year. Each individual will bring his personal set of appointments to the calendar, and he will scribble them into the appropriate boxes of each page of each month. He hopes they’ll all be good.

As we begin the New Year that is before us, it behooves us to be mindful of the Lord’s words regarding the truths we know from the Bible. He says, “Be doers of the Word, not hearers only,” James 1:22. The half-brother of the Lord goes on to say in this verse that if we hear and don’t act upon what we know, “…you deceive yourselves.”

We who profess to love the Lord Jesus Christ, we who claim that our lives have been transformed by His gift of salvation, must assure that as we fill the moments and hours and days and weeks and months before us that we will employ the time He gives to us with activities that will bring honor to the name of the One we have owned as Savior and Lord, for that is the highest privilege of our calling.

We will be well-served in our endeavor to fill our calendar with good things if we, as Paul admonished his protégé in II Timothy 2:15, “Study to show yourself approved of the Lord, a workman that need not be ashamed because he rightly discerns the word of truth.” When we rightly discern the Word because we have taken it to our heart, we can receive the promise, “Blessed are those who hear and obey the Word” Luke 11:28.

May we hear and obey—and be blessed—in the year that will unfold before us.